Breakfast
by swampophelia
Summary: Summary: Written for the LJ Kissing Meme.  A hopefully... "different" take on kissing.


**Title: **Breakfast  
**Author****:** **swampophelia, swamp_ariadne in LJ**  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word Count:** 1,122  
**Warnings:** It's PG-13, what else do you expect? Non-beta'd. Any mistakes are mine. (like tensing, cause sometimes I don't know when stuff is happening)  
**Pairing: **Ariadne/Cobb  
**Summary:** Written for the Kissing Meme. A hopefully... "different" take on kissing.  
**Disclaimer:** If I had any rights to Inception, there would be a TV series. It would be that simple.

A/N: Read and review please. Concrit very very welcome.

* * *

The blank page was staring at me, all that whiteness like an evil expansive eye mocking me.

_So are you truly creative? Really now? All that hubris about pure creation and you can't even fill me?_

The sketch pad continued to taunt me as my mind was as blank as it was.

This is unacceptable. Any minute they will come back and I have nothing to show for my all- nighter but two empty pots of coffee and Samsonite under my eyes. I pound my forehead on the desk in frustration as only the most droll and pedestrian layout remained in my thoughts – too easy to navigate through and completely out of spec.

The Mark this time was a master chess player, so I admit I'm intimidated by the fact that his mind is trained to think three steps ahead. Arthur's research held up this time – no militarization but the man would likely be able to spot a maze from the onset so the construction this time needed to be adaptive.

That was where Cobb's advanced drills came into play. We've been doing building drills for nearly a month in real time. But under – we've been building for years. He's been building again but no one can extract secrets like he can, not even Eames. Cobb says that Eames specializes in emotional pull, but not everyone is swayed by emotion. He says everyone has a tell, and even Eames concedes that Cobb always picks it out ahead of everyone else. They rope me in to be the architect in this little adventure, and next thing I know Cobb is teaching me about adaptive mindscapes. Because of the nature of the job I would need to come along and change things as necessary, so aside from subtle landscape alteration he's teaching me marksmanship and everything else I need to militarize my own subconscious.

Arthur was supposed to train me on weapons and defense, but after a failed attempt at gravity defiance on my part I vowed never again will I let him be the drill sergeant. After that Cobb and Eames took turns, guiding me through target practice and the occasional spar. Eames said the trick was in getting the projections to arm themselves. He said that I needed to _believe_ that my mind could be invaded any time – I had to be hyperaware of my sense of self in order to sense when foreign influence is at work on me. I had been so focused on getting my normally benign projections to take up guns that I've been faltering on the reason I am on this job – creating an adaptive maze.

I raise my head and stare at the page, willing a shape to form.

"You know if you keep squinting like that, it's going to be permanent."

Cobb was expecting me to be startled out of my dismal mood, but I'm too far gone. I'm cranky, irritable and I surmise I probably look like hell. I pout at him, squinting for all I'm worth.

"I can't do this. You have to build your own god damned maze. I cannot for the love of all things holy beat Chenkerov."

Cobb sets down the package he was holding and perches himself on the desk as he takes my hand.

"That's what's holding you back, isn't it?," he says in a low murmur as he gently rubbed my hands. "Chenkerov is a grandmaster but it doesn't mean that he can outthink everyone, especially in the dream we're making for him."

"But we only have two more weeks until we fly to Romania!," I protest.

"And we'll be fine. You will be fine," Cobb reassures me, one hand letting go of me and reaching into the paper bag next to him.

"What you need to do is accept the empty space for what it is – there is no rush to fill it. It's just empty space, full of potential…"

"You mean full of nothing," I cut him off as I eye whatever it is he's rooting around in the unmarked bag.

He reaches for my chin and forces me to face him, and then I'm drowning in blue.

"Nothing just means potential…," he murmurs gently stroking my face. I lean into his hand, and it was at that moment that I saw what he was searching for.

"Oh my god, Dom! How did you know?," I squeal as I grab the confection from the bag. "Krispy Kreme Hershey's Kisses donuts…. The best breakfast ever," I mumble as I dig in. Cobb looks at me with barely contained amusement as I continue to make appreciative sounds with every bite until I wolf the last bit down.

"Well they are limited edition, and you've been sneaking off to buy them at the corner when you think no on else is looking…"

"Have you been following me?"

"Well, I needed to check if you figured out if you were being tailed. All that time with Eames and I just need to know if_ that_ training has been working out…"

"That does it Dom Cobb," I cry in indignation. "Just because you give me kiss donuts for breakfast doesn't mean you can start questioning my abilities..."

"Hey relax," he intones as he grips my shoulders, his face in an openly caring expression. His hands slide down my arms and he takes my hands in his, engulfing them. "I'm not questioning your abilities, I'm questioning my ability to teach you."

I was stunned. The silence became awkward quickly, and as much as I wanted to not look at him I couldn't look away. His eyes were unreadable, yet I could feel that undercurrent again, the one I've sensed growing between me and this man.

I laugh self-deprecatingly (I hope that's how I sounded) as I stand up. At this position, we're eye level to each other, faces only inches apart. "Since when do you doubt yourself, oh great Extractor and Architect of the mind?," I tease.

The space between us is what I try to focus on, but I fail when he licks his lips just that bit. I don't know if he noticed where my eyes had gone to, I don't know if he noticed how tightly he's been holding my hands. All I know is that he lifts my hands to his face and he lightly grazes them across those lips, his eyes never leaving mine.

"Since I met you."

I don't recall when he let me go, or when he left my workstation. It feels as if he was across me one moment and the next I just woke up to a Hershey's kiss on my sketchpad.

Hershey's kiss… distinctive flat-bottom teardrop…. Hmm. I can work with that.


End file.
